


Holy Water

by SolStudio



Series: Nowhere to Run [2]
Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: (but not really), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Demon Shane Madej, Developing Friendships, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-30
Updated: 2019-09-30
Packaged: 2020-11-08 00:56:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20826701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolStudio/pseuds/SolStudio
Summary: A week ago, if you told Ryan that he’d actually get evidence of the supernatural on film and have a first person encounter with a demon and survive, he would have been ecstatic. Although, had he known that the demon wouldn’t be leaving him alone, and instead would be following him back to his university, he would have been a whole lot more upset.





	Holy Water

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 of my series in which Ryan Bergara accidentally mistakes history major Shane Madej for a demon. Enjoy!

Listen, Ryan was coping, _okay?_ It wasn’t everyday you accidentally, but kind of on purpose, but still not intentionally, summoned a demon. He didn’t fuck with demons, ever, and the one time he decided to try out of sheer desperation for some type of evidence, he managed to actually summon one. Moreover, not only did he manage to summon one, but he managed to summon the strangest demon in existence… not that he had much of a reference for typical demon behavior. 

_Anyways, _the point was that this demon had not only given its word, for however much that was worth, that it wouldn’t harm Ryan in anyway, but it had decided to stick around for some reason.

Shane- that was what it had called itself- had enrolled into Ryan’s university somehow. He assumed that it had used some type of demon magic to disguise itself as a human and get enrolled. Not only that, but people seemed to know Shane, or at the very least have some fake memories of the demon that it must have implanted in their heads.

For his Digital Media class Ryan had been working on a team project with his classmate, Sara Rubin. He had seen her in the hallways before and vaguely knew her face, but he’d never talked to her before she sat next to him on the first day of class this semester. Despite never having talked before that day, she’d quickly become a good friend. 

Yesterday, when he was working in the library, Shane had stopped by and informed him that he- ‘_it’_ Ryan reminded himself- was majoring in history, and after that, Ryan hadn’t been able to stop wondering if Sara had encountered the demon yet. He knew that Sara, despite being a film major like him, had a bunch of friends in the history department and spent a lot of her time hanging out with history majors. Ultimately, during one of their meet ups to work on the project, he hadn’t been able to stop himself from blurting out the question.

“So uh.. You know a lot of people in the history department, right?” Ryan glanced to the side nervously from his spot on the couch across from Sara, hoping his awkwardness wasn’t too palpable.

Sara, who had taken up residence on the floor with her laptop in front of her on the coffee table, looked up from footage she had been editing. “Yeah… Why?” She raised one of her eyebrows in vague interest.

“Have you met anyone new in the history department? Going by the name of Shane?” 

“A new guy named Shane?” She leaned back from her hunched up position to sit up straight and think. Ultimately she shook her head no, and Ryan heaved a sigh that was a mixture of relief and disappointment. 

On one hand, he was glad that Sara hadn’t happened to interact with the demon. He wanted to keep all his friends as far away as possible from the danger Shane could pose to them. On the other hand, he wanted to figure out what Shane was doing at his school. 

Just as he refocused and began to continue working, Sara suddenly continued. “Yeah, no new Shane that I know of, at least. There’s only one Shane I know in the history department, and I’ve known him since last year.”

Ryan’s head shot back up, and he locked his eyes back on to Sara. “What does that Shane look like?”

“Oh, you would know for sure if you knew him. He’s basically 8 feet tall. He’s probably the tallest person on campus.” Sara held her hand high above her head, as if to demonstrate how tall Shane was.

“That’s the one, for sure.” Ryan swallowed around the lump that had seemed to form in his throat. “And you said you’ve known him since last year?”

“Yeah, we’ve been friends for awhile now. I didn’t know you knew him though. You two run in totally different circles. How’d you meet him?”

Without thinking, Ryan had made up an excuse using a half-truth about how he’d met Shane while working in the library a few days ago. As he’d rattled off the excuse to Sara, he had begun to fully understand the scope of the situation. The demon must have planted memories of this human persona it had created called ‘Shane’ into all the humans around it. Ryan couldn’t trust anyone’s memories except his own anymore.

So... yeah. In summary, Ryan was surrounded by people who were blind to Shane’s true nature and believed the demon had been attending this university for a couple years now. The worst part was that Ryan couldn’t try to warn them of the very real danger they were completely oblivious to, as he couldn’t risk exposing the demon out of fear of retaliation. After all, Shane had only promised to not drag him to Hell as long as Ryan didn’t tell anyone about his true nature.

Ryan couldn’t expose the demon, but he needed to get rid of him- _it_\- for sure. For the past few days he’d thrown himself into research on how to exorcise demons or send them back to hell, with minimal results; it seemed like everyone had a different, unique method for getting rid of demons nowadays. 

In the meantime, Ryan had gone out and gotten some holy water. If there was one thing he felt certain of, it was that every demon should be opposed holy objects of all sorts. Not to mention, holy water was something he could carry around each day without drawing suspicion. He could keep it in a normal water bottle and not have to worry about Shane suspecting he was up to something.

Since first showing up at the library a week ago, Shane had made a habit of stopping by whenever Ryan was working. He wasn’t sure as to how Shane always seemed to know when he was working. Though, if Shane knew Sara, maybe he- _it- fuck it,_ _he gave up_\- maybe he had found out through her.

As such, when Ryan was working in the library that night he wasn’t surprised to see Shane walk through the doors. Luckily, he wasn’t on checkout duty tonight, and instead he had been tasked with restocking the shelves with returned books. Grabbing the cart full of books he’d been reshelving, he quickly pulled them into the aisle and hid behind the shelf. Peeking around the end cap, he glanced around to see where Shane was.

Sure enough, Shane seemed to be searching around the front desk in hopes of finding him. Ryan’s stomach dropped as he realized he had left his backpack and bottle of holy water sitting at the foot of the desk. Just as he realized that Shane would recognize his backpack for sure, Shane’s watchful eye caught sight of it. 

Ryan let out a curse and quickly moved back behind cover. He was screwed now. Shane wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon now, and Ryan couldn’t hide all night; he didn’t want to get fired. Accepting defeat, Ryan left behind the rolling cart and went towards the front to confront Shane.

Almost as soon as he stepped out of his hiding spot, Shane spotted him and started waving. 

“Hey Ryan!” He called out loudly across the library, smiling obnoxiously wide and getting more than a few annoyed looks from other students trying to work. 

Ryan speed-walked the rest of the way over to him and glared at Shane. “You do know you’re in a library, right?” He hissed angrily at him.

To his credit, Shane winced and appeared apologetic. “Whoops, sorry Ryan.” 

Ryan crossed his arms across his chest before huffing angrily. The student currently working checkout, Ryan didn’t even know his name to be honest (_maybe it started with an A?_), looked over to where Ryan and Shane were standing, giving Ryan a look that clearly said ‘hey, if you don’t get your loud friend out of here soon and get back to work, you’re going to be in big trouble.’

Ryan almost wanted to protest and make it clear that Shane was by no means his friend, despite no one actually having said so, but reined himself in last second and turned back to face Shane.

“Listen, you can’t just come in here and annoy all the other students.” Ryan lowered his voice as he continued. “If you really want to stick around to keep an eye on me to make sure that I don’t break our deal, you need to start acting more like a normal student. People are going to catch on that you’re not human.”

“A… normal… student?” Shane seemed to find the whole thing funny for some reason as he cracked a smile. “But that’s so boring!”

Ryan pinched the bridge of his nose and shut his eyes in disappointment. “Well at least try to be normal in the library. You’ve definitely ruined it for today though. If you don’t get out of here fast I think I might get fired. Try coming back tomorrow and not making a scene.”

“Man, I just walked all the way here from my apartment in the hot California weather, and now you’re telling me I have to turn around immediately and walk all the way back?” Shane whined. “The least you could do is let me have your water so I don’t pass out on the way back.” He motioned towards the bottle sitting next to Ryan’s bag.

“My water?” Ryan turned to where Shane had gestured and, with a jolt, realized he was talking about the holy water. Ryan’s eyes lit up as he started to comprehend what was happening. Shane was asking to drink the holy water. Holy shit. This was perfect. If all went well, Shane would be back in Hell by the end of the day. 

Ryan swiftly picked the bottle up off the floor and shoved it into Shane’s hands. “Of course!” He offered up a big smile. “Feel free to drink it on the way home, but not in the library. Drinking isn’t allowed in the library.”

For a second, Shane seemed shocked by Ryan’s sudden friendly change in demeanor, but he shook it off and smiled back. “Thanks man! I’ll see you tomorrow!” 

As Shane opened the doors to leave, Ryan called out after him. “I’ll look forward to it!” He gleefully waved towards the demon, knowing that it was very likely the last time he’d ever have to see him.

* * *

It was the next day around noon when he and Sara met up again to continue working on their project. Ryan had been in a good mood all morning, as he hadn’t heard a word from Shane since he’d sent him off with the holy water last night. A small part of him had been worried Shane would see through his plan and come to get revenge on Ryan, but it seemed his worries were unfounded. In fact, he was almost eager to go to work later and have Shane not show up to bug him.

He sat up from the work he had been doing to stretch his arms over his head. His neck and back were aching from holding the hunched over position for so long. As he stretched, he noticed Sara frowning down at her phone with a concerned look on her face.

“Everything okay?” Ryan brought his arms back down to rest by his sides, and focusing in on Sara.

“Everything’s okay, yeah. It’s just that Shane isn’t feeling well. He’s apparently been throwing up all night.” Sara’s eyebrows furrowed with worry.

“Wait, he’s sick?” Ryan wasn’t sure what to make of the situation. He thought if a demon consumed holy water that they’d either be sent back down to hell or even destroyed. He hadn’t predicted that it’d make Shane violently ill. 

“Yeah. Shane, a few of our friends, and I all went out to dinner late last night, and the place was kinda sketchy, but Shane talked us into staying and trying it out. Looks like he shouldn’t have done that though because he ended up getting pretty bad food poisoning from the steak he ate. Poor guy hasn’t been able to hold anything down for over 12 hours now. Anything he eats or drinks, other than water, comes right back up.” 

Inexplicably, Ryan started to feel bad. He hadn’t really wanted to hurt Shane; he just wanted to get the guy to go back to wherever he came from, and well, if that meant Shane got destroyed, then so be it. He was doing the world a favor by getting rid of a demon. That didn’t mean he wanted it to be painful and drawn out though. He just wanted the demon to leave him alone. Now it sounded like he was really suffering, and it was all because of Ryan.

God, what was he even thinking? Feeling bad for a demon? What had gotten into him? He wished he could go back to before last week, back when he believed in demons and the supernatural, but hadn’t actually had to deal with seeing them on a daily basis. 

He closed his eyes and tried not to think about what Shane was doing right now. Just as he started to get his mind off of the issue and back on to work, Sara flung her phone down onto the table in frustration. 

“He hasn’t answered any of my messages in the past couple hours so I’m just getting worried.” Sara rested her head in her hands, her curls bouncing with the motion.

Just seeing the genuine worry Sara was experiencing, Ryan felt guilty all over again. He also knew that this time, that guilt wasn’t going to go away that easily. Knowing him, it wouldn’t go away until he did something to make everything okay again. Even if he didn’t like Shane, Sara clearly cared about him, and even though Shane had never done anything to hurt him, Ryan had gone ahead and caused him to suffer for over 12 hours anyways. 

Sighing and sitting up straighter in his seat, Ryan braced himself for what he knew he needed to do.

“Do you know the address to Shane’s apartment?”

* * *

Ryan took a deep breath at the bottom of the steps leading up to Shane’s apartment. Willing himself to move, he started up the stairs. Shifting the bowl he was carrying over so it was trapped between his left arm and chest, he raised his free hand up to hover by the door. Hesitating briefly, he shook off the nerves plaguing him and knocked loudly. 

After a few seconds of standing awkwardly on the doorstep, the door was pulled open, and Shane stood in the entrance way. At the first sight of Shane, Ryan’s guilt intensified ten fold. Shane looked like he’d been through Hell and back. Well... on second thought, that might not have been the best phrase to describe it.

Shane looked miserable. He had large, dark bags under his eyes, his skin was ashen, and he had a blanket wrapped around his body like a cape.

Without thinking, Ryan shoved the bowl in hands forwards towards Shane. “I got you this.” 

Looking down into it, Shane gave him a confused look. “Uh, not that I’m not grateful and all, but why are you on my doorstep with popcorn?”

Ryan looked down into the bowl of popcorn and idly scuffed one of his feet back and forth. “So uh, I heard you got pretty sick, and well… it’s my fault. The other day when I gave you that water? Uh, it was actually... um… holy water. I gave it to you on purpose in hopes it would send you back to Hell.”

“You tried to get rid of me?”

As Ryan looked back up he took in the expression on Shane’s face. In a way, he looked.. hurt? It was as if he hadn’t expected Ryan disliked him enough to actually try to get rid of him.

“I did, and I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to make you suffer or anything; I just thought it’d get rid of you, but even then you’ve never done anything to me, and I shouldn’t have done it. I may hate demons, but I know Sara cares a lot about you, and maybe I shouldn’t mess with things that are beyond my area of expertise. I’m just a film student after all; I’m only a _wannabe_ ghost hunter.” Remembering the bowl still held between his hands, Ryan continued. 

“Here, you uh…, mentioned you like popcorn the other day at the library so I thought I’d get you some as an apology. I swear it isn’t poisoned this time.” Ryan offered up the bowl to Shane once again.

As Shane got a whiff of the popcorn, his face was immediately taken over with a look of nausea.

“Oh shit!” Ryan yanked the bowl back to his body. “I totally forgot you’ve been sick. I’m the absolute worst. Not only that, but I put salt on it too, and that might actually poison you as well! I’m a total idiot. Sorry this apology sucks so bad.”

Shane smiled gently. “It’s okay, man. I actually managed to make some toast an hour ago and keep it down so I should be good to have a couple pieces of popcorn. I think the worst of it’s behind me now.” Shane shifted the blanket around his shoulders so it was more tightly cocooned around him. “Also, a little salt never hurt anyone.”

Reaching out, Shane threw Ryan a smug grin, plucking a piece of popcorn from the bowl and throwing it into his mouth. Ryan made a mental note that apparently, salt must not affect demons the way he thought it did. Maybe if he asked Shane about it someday, he’d tell him what facts about demons were actually true.

Shane, despite his initial reaction, seemed to really enjoy the popcorn. “Man, popcorn’s the best. There’s no greater food in existence, I swear. It’s always been my favorite, and it always will be, for sure.” Shane went to grab another piece before changing his mind last second and snagging the whole bowl out of Ryan’s hands.

“Really?” Ryan offered up a genuine smile. “Mine too!’

“Well, I definitely won’t be able to finish this whole thing on my own since my stomach is still kind of a mess so...” Shane hesitated in the doorway before seemingly making up his mind. “If you really are a true kernelhead like you claim to be, wanna come watch a movie and eat all the popcorn that I can’t right now?”

To be honest, Ryan was shocked Shane wanted anything to do with him anymore after what he’d done. Although, Shane _was_ a demon, so Ryan supposed he’d never truly understand went on in his mind. Still, Ryan was glad he was so forgiving. It was getting a lot harder to hate the guy.

Passing through the doorway, he followed Shane to the living area.

“My roommates hate horror movies, and since none of them are home right now I was planning on watching some Friday the 13th while they were gone. Does that sound good to you?” Shane walked around the couch before dramatically plopping down on the left side, placing the popcorn bowl on the middle seat.

“A horror movie? Really? Kinda cliche for a demon, don’t you think?” Ryan said as he took a seat on the right half of the couch and stole a handful of popcorn from the bowl.

Shane threw him a wink, and pressed play on the remote to start up the movie. “You know it.”

Somehow, Ryan was pretty sure everything was going to be okay.

**Author's Note:**

> In summary: Shane gets food poisoning and Ryan falsely blames himself so he apologizes with popcorn.
> 
> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed! Find me on tumblr [here!](https://solstudio.tumblr.com/)


End file.
